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12“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. 14Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? 15Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. 17Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” 18Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. 19The Lord answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.” (Joel 2:12-19)

The day of the LORD is great and very terrible; Who can endure it? (Joel 2:11)

The day of the Lord, the day of Judgment, is come. It is great and very terrible. Yes, indeed! Who can endure it? Who can persist and continue when the Lord meets out His judgment upon a wayward people, a wayward people even called by His Holy Name.

Joel prophesied to such a people. He spoke and proclaimed to the people of God. They had departed from the Lord, following their own ways, heeding their own opinions, holding fast to their own judgments, and not according to the will of the Lord. They were a way faring people, led by their own desires and hearkening to their own inclinations.

They took for granted all that the Lord had done for them, all that He had provided for them, and how He had kept and preserved them. And now, judgment was to come, judgment by way of that which would destroy their bounty, diminish their excess, and humble a prideful people.

Joel speaks of locusts, which would devour the land (Joel 1:4; 2:25). They would leave nothing behind. Crops would be leveled. No grain would be in sight. Harvest would be absent.

The prophet Joel speaks of the destruction caused by the locusts as “The day of the Lord.” We in our day, on this side of the hemisphere and in this nation have a hard time understanding such devastation caused by such things. But the people in Joel’s day lived off the land. They depended on the crops and their bounty for their livelihood. They couldn’t go to another grocery store if one was empty. If the crops failed, that meant dire straits.

Farmers today know this. Yet, for most of us, we know little about true hunger and true devastation. We know little of what it means to be truly in want, to have little or nothing. We do not really know what it is like to be in a famine, to suffer the consequences of a deadly plague, to be in the state of starvation, or to be literally dying of thirst.

We have it fairly easy today. Food is abundant. We have clean water, clothes on our back, a roof over our heads. We have all that we need, and more.

Like the Israelites of Joel’s day, we take for granted all that the Lord has provided for us. We take for granted all that He abundantly gives us of His mercy, without any merit or worthiness in us. We, like the people in Joel’s day, fail to even see the means by which God would call us back to Himself.

By means of the prophet Joel, God called His people to repentance, to Return to Him with all their heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13and torend their hearts and not their garments. God called His people to repent of their idolatrous hearts and their false assumptions that God would always be with them, even should they forsake Him and His ways and not trust in His promises.

They simply went through the motions of God’s people, but their hearts were far from their Lord and their God (Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 15:8). They went to church. They gave offering. They did what they thought God required of them. But they did not believe. They forsook the Word and trusted in themselves.

Do you see the events in the world enfolding before your eyes as a call to repentance? The downward spiral of our economy and the increasing debt? The revolutions and rebellions across the globe? Troubles in the Mideast and elsewhere? The hypocrisy and the apostasy of church after church which claims to bear Christ’s Name? Accidents (as we call them), and death after death because of this or that?

Do you see these things as reminder of sin and a call to turn to the Lord with repentant hearts, turning away from your own sinful hearts and to the welcoming arms of the Lord?

May it be that even the smallest and most insignificant thing would move you to turn away from yourself and worldly things to the Lord Himself!

The Lord does not want your false repentance, or your hypocritical and meaningless confession. He does not want your empty words of regret or hollow mourns of sorrow.

The Psalmist says that, The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry. The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles. The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:15-19).

The righteous are they who see themselves as God sees them—as unrighteous, who say, We are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away (Isaiah 64:5).

The righteous claim no righteousness, or goodness, of their own. They take God at His Word, and believe Him, come what may. They do not argue and deny that God is true, but submit to His Word, and believe in the only Savior–Jesus. In this they are righteous, not because of their own righteousness, but because of the righteousness of another.

Therefore, at the hearing of the Lord’s Word, even through the prophet Joel, God’s people turn to the Lord with all their heart. They rend their hearts, not their garments. They acknowledge that they have not been as God would have them be, and seek God’s favor, His pardon, and His peace. They seek God’s forgiveness in Christ Jesus, and there, in Him, they have it.

There, in Him, in Christ Jesus, you have God’s full pardon and peace. There, you know that you have God’s favor upon you. In Christ, with nail prints in His hands and feet, and with the mark of the spear in His side, you know that God’s judgment has been removed from you. God laid the punishment of your sin on Him.

God is indeed Gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. This you know and believe because of Jesus Christ.

Therefore, Turn to God with all your heart! Return to the Lord your God! Repent! Forsake your sinful ways, your trust in yourselves, and your dependency on the things of this world. These things cannot help you or save you. But God can! And God does! He gives you life in the midst of death, joy in the midst of sorrow, and peace in the midst of strife. He feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty. He gives aid to the poor and bounty to the needy.

Therefore, hold fast to the Lord. He does not forget you. He remembers His promises. He holds you in His hands and bears you up (Psalm 91:12). Sorrow over your sin, but rejoice in the Lord, for He is good and gracious, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.